Memeorandum

October 01, 2012

In New York State, The Future Is Later

ALBANY — A few months after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
was poised to approve hydraulic fracturing in several struggling New
York counties, his administration is reversing course and starting the
regulatory process over, garnering praise from environmental groups and
stirring anger among industry executives and upstate landowners.

Ten days ago, after nearly four years of review by state regulators, the
governor bowed to entreaties from environmentalists to conduct another
study, this one an examination of potential impacts on public health.
Neither the governor nor other state officials have given any indication
of how long the study might take.

How long will it take to nail down a decision? They need to ask Cumo's pollsters and fundraisers. However, this indecision will probably make Cuomo unelectable on the national stage, although it might very well make him a favorite for the Dem Party Presidential nomination:

The developments have created a sense in Albany that Mr. Cuomo is
consigning fracking to oblivion. The governor has been influenced by the
unshakable opposition from a corps of environmentalists and celebrity
activists who are concerned about the safety of the water supply. The
opponents include a number of people close to the governor, including
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental activist in New York
whose sister is the governor’s ex-wife.

The fracking issue is the biggest environmental question, and the most
polarizing, facing Albany, and New York’s decision is being closely
watched nationally, as President Obama and Mitt Romney have both
expressed support for increased use of natural gas as a means to reduce
the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
The natural gas industry has been eager to drill in the Marcellus
Shale, a deep underground repository that runs through West Virginia,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Extraction there was too complex and
costly until the advent of hydrofracking.

...opposition to fracking has become such a
touchstone for liberals that approving it, even in a limited fashion,
would undoubtedly alienate some of his most dependable supporters.
Anti-fracking protesters have shadowed Mr. Cuomo for months, at his
home, his office, and his speaking engagements, and a wide array of
celebrities, including Lady Gaga and Yoko Ono, have mobilized to express
opposition to the technology.

“Andrew has a very good political antenna, and we’ve never seen anything
like this in terms of grass-roots power,” Mr. Kennedy, whose father was
a United States attorney general, said in a telephone interview. “In 30
years, I have not seen anything come close to this, in terms of the
mobilization of the grass roots. You’ve got 20,000 people in the state
who consider themselves to be anti-frack activists. So I think that’s
got to impact the political process all around.”

Gee, if Lady GaGa is against it, how can any responsible Democrat be for it?

The Times closes with a buried, embittered rumination:

It was not entirely clear what further health impacts would be studied
that were not already encompassed by the review process that began in
the summer of 2008. In a statement in response to questions, the
Department of Environmental Conservation said “health impacts were not
overlooked” in the agency’s prior reviews, and “were fully assessed” in a
draft environmental impact study that was released last year.

Joseph Martens, the agency’s commissioner, said last week: “Obviously if
there was a public health concern that could not be addressed we would
not proceed.”

Senator Thomas W. Libous, a Binghamton Republican and leading proponent
of fracking, said he hoped the new study was “the last major hurdle,”
adding, “I want to believe that.”

If Democrats can embrace this fear of the future at the national level, we can be in thrall to the Middle East for another generation. Or, they can reclaim their out-of-power-and-deservedly-so status.

Comments

[Barry] Commoner insisted that scientists had an obligation to make scientific information accessible to the general public, so that citizens could participate in public debates that involved scientific questions.

What ? Average citizens are totally unqualified to debate anything as they are not "peers." Just ask any "climate scientist."

NYS now challenges Calif, Ill, Ct and RI for the race to insolvency. I think Ct and RI will win the dubious distinction of the first bankrupt state b/c of their small ecomomies of scale, but that shouldn't make NYS, Ill and Calif residents feel any better, those states' day of reckoning will come soon enough. Indeed, the Calif implosion will be truly spectacular. PS: former client Andrew (he's no genius BTW) may have just made Fracking states OH AND Pa. RR locks. Way to go Andrew!

Among the many ironies illustrated in the changing of the script for Damon's movie, and its funding is another: Natural Gas releases half as much CO2 as coal for the same energy produced. Once upon a time I had the chemistry to explain that.

Great Britain is glacially coming to their senses about fracking, but then, their situation is more perilous than ours.
================

There is war on conventional energy that has been wage by the pre-Raphaelite Left for the past 40 years that has found succor in the Democratic Party.

The Shell game in Alaska; the coal bans; the extended shut down of San Onofre out here in California; there is a focused effort to shut down the grid and modern society.

Living here in Southern California we are subject to some of the worst water quality in the nation. It is barely potable sometimes. We are now subject to brown outs and black outs that should never have been allowed.

Our Central Valley is in a man made depression at a time of food inflation because they won't release water from the Delta because of the snail darter.

If we continue along this path we will end up like Lagos or Baghdad where the power only comes on part of the day.

The Green lobby is slowly pushing California 100 years backwards. Of course no one cares about Upstate New York anyway. They don't think like the right thinking folk in Manhatten.

Barry Commoner's ecological vision gets cited by educators pushing this systems thinking approach to the classroom and a redesigned economy. I had never heard of him until a few months ago and the Nation picks NOW to run a story.

I am starting to feel like the Transformational tsunami is coming regardless of the election in November. If RR prevails the idea seems to be too many already moving parts at taxpayer expense to stop.

Yet the electorate seems not to mind being walked all over.
The business in the Central Valley is a case in point.

The left is out to destroy Western Civilization.

Of course, their real masters will have plenty of energy.

It is amazing such nitwits and vipers have such power in our society and nation. Suicide by imbecile.

(BTW, You can full expect that should Obama stay in power Ill, CA and NY will get bailed out by the FEDs at the taxpayers expense. No small part of the "Stimulus" went to troubled Democrat state and municipal governments.

By hook or by crook they will get away with "nationalizing" the debts of these States. Obama will just bypass Congress if he cannot get oil though the Hill. They could care less about the implications.

SquareDance-- disagree with one thing. 'Bam (god forbid he's elected again) would nationalize Cal, Ill, RI and Ct pension debts (NYS is 'fully funded') because that would start a civil war with solvent Red States-- Bam doesn't have the balls for that. However, e WOULD use SallieMae to forgive student loans.

ValJar will also be pushing to internationalize the West Bank and Gaza. Look for a push by the Obama Administration to push Israeli back to the late 1940s borders and to support a UN "peacekeeping" force to patrol areas Israel leaves.

I realize there's no chance Israel would accept this, and the Obama Administration will have to back down. But by breaking with our longstanding ally Israel, a second Obama Administration would make the Middle Eastern situation even more dangerous.

The Blue Hells of Cal, Ill and Ct have over 25B of unfunded pension contributions during this decade, nationwide it's OVER $50B -- that's just contributions, the 8% ROI pro forma for the funds is a sick joke in a ZIRP world. You can't HIDE that sort of bailout, it's FAR bigger than the GM/UAW bailout.

TC-- ValJar would push for it because she's a moron. Then the Dem $$$ bigshots would call and point out that such a bailout accelerates the end of T-Bills as a reliable debt instrument. The Dems can't destroy their access to Federal Treasury debt, that's the only way they can pay for socialism. Sooooo... goodbye Calif, Ill,Ct and RI.

Clarice-- Andy C did marry a Kennedy in 1990-- Kerry, RFK Jr's daughter. She started boffing a Polo player and Andy divorced her in 2003. I had to remember not to bring up polo during client meetings with him.

On SQ's point on pulling down the dams, that's part of the war against technology subjugating nature. It is the same pitch used to complain about pesticides and chemical fertilizers. The Bioregional and Environmental Justice part of this How to get to 51% coalition does not really fit with the pitch sold to Big Business to get them on board. One of the ways I know I am about the read an actual end goal is when the rhetoric starts to ratchet up reasons for a change that I know are not first. Goal first then rationale. Not nice of me to notice such things.

The Bioregional idea is that there will be no more states or really countries and that the natural watersheds will dictate designated urban areas. As I say with the education aspect to this whole control the economy and people scheme, "This won't work so when are we go to face that the desired end goals are untenable?"

And I agree with Mel. There was a reference to both teachers unions in the document I worked on this morning that basically ended up reminding me that NEA would be making money off of pushing Purple America and Project Love and they would join together with the Building One America community organizers.

Stanley Kurtz would find that document interesting because it clearly does all fit. And they really do plan to use the schools to practice their community organizing theories. It even said so.

No mention though of Saul or Alliance. I do not think they appreciate that cat is out of the bag.

And Annenberg would continue to be outraged at all the harm is charitable gift to public ed has created.

"The rial's losses have accelerated in the past week after the government launched an "exchange centre" designed to supply dollars to importers of some basic goods at a special rate slightly cheaper than the market rate."

Narciso, don't put any stock in the Boston Globe polls. They had Marcia up by 15 over Brown with just over a week to go. Hell, they can't even get the weather report right. They've been running a Wednesday forecast for severe thunderstorms every day since early September, and only fixed it today when I e-mailed them.